THE ANTIKYTHERA MECHANISM

The Antikythera
mechanism from 150-
100bc was one of the first
“robots” that was able to
do advanced functions.
It was designed to
calculate the positions of
astronomical objects.
This is considered the first
analog computer.
TIMELINE
• The Egyptians had robotics including a sound tube.
• The Greeks had mastered basic machines and automatons, as well as many
mechanical creatures, and water diversion.
• Greeks had rudimentary home automation.
• Al-Jazari’s programmable humanoid robots.
• Metropolis movie in 2026 along with many showing catastrophic results.
• Robots started to become a large attraction regardless of the actual technology
behind it, most of the time it was just people hidden working the strings so to
speak.
• Robots quickly became the stars of science fiction
• George Devall is considered the father of robotics.
ATOMOTONS
Automatons literally means a moving mechanical device made in
imitation of a human being. Generally it means a machine that
performs a function according to a predetermined set of coded
instructions, especially one capable of a range of programmed
responses to different circumstances.
The first automaton was created in 1739 and it was the digesting
duck by jacques de vaucanson.
 HISTORY OF MICROCONTROLLERS
• The first microcontroller was a 4 bit intel 4004 made in 1974
• The intel 8008 came several years later with increased performance and more capable
hardware
• Intel later created a computer system on a single chip (the 8048) optimized for control
applications, the main innovation is that it combined ram and rom on the same chip.
• Later the 8048 is in billions of devices
• Most controllers at this time still used rom (read only memory), most of the time they were
programmed to do one task and that’s the only task it could do.
• Later EPROM came into the microcontrollers view, most of these common ICs had a
transparent window at the top of the device allowing ultraviolet light to erase the chip
• More recently the introduction of eeprom in 1993 has allowed microcontrollers to be
reprogrammed rapidly without expensive packages.